


An Easing of Burdens

by bluehawthorn



Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies), The Hobbit - All Media Types, The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Awkward Thorin, Consensual Sex, Dwarf/Human Relationship(s), Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Forest Sex, My First Smut, Oral Sex, POV Original Female Character, Poor Thorin Oakenshield, Protective Thorin, Romance, Shameless Smut, Smut, Thorin POV
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-06
Updated: 2015-03-06
Packaged: 2018-03-16 12:58:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,613
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3489116
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluehawthorn/pseuds/bluehawthorn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Late one evening after a long day of danger, she finds herself alone with Thorin. She surprises him (and herself) with an offer, which leads to a night that eases many of Thorin's burdens as well as her own.</p>
            </blockquote>





	An Easing of Burdens

**Author's Note:**

> There is a human woman on the quest for pretty much no reason...except smut.
> 
> Of course, I own none of these characters except the one I created, nor their backstories. Also, I'm really new at this - comments are very welcome.

The company is raucous tonight, singing and laughing over the fire, releasing the tension of the day’s earlier violence. She sits a small distance away, at the edges of the firelight on a fallen tree trunk, her knees drawn in tight against the cold. 

She finds herself needing this small bit of almost-solitude in the evenings, as far away from the group as she can safely go. Although no one would call her weak or anything close to it, she is, as a human, made of less stern and resilient stuff than the dwarves, and she feels it on a day like this. 

She knows that Thorin has noticed her times away from the group and that he sometimes looks her way in concern. Tonight she sees his eyes rise to her and before she can signal to him that she is alright, he strides toward her. 

He settles close by her side on the fallen tree which leans down under his weight, but holds them. His hands spread over the log to each side of him, one nearly close enough to brush her leg. She can feel the heat of his wide, steady body next to hers and his long dark hair, shot through with silver, lying against his shoulders and nearly brushing one of her own. 

She shifts uncomfortably next to him, not wanting him to be worried on her behalf. She knows that he was wary of bringing her on this quest. Although she thinks she has changed his mind and shown her value, she knows he only did so at first because of Gandalf's insistence that she knows the paths they travel better than anyone in their company. 

And so she does. She in turn, came because a human life - even though hers may be extended somewhat beyond what is usual - is short, and chances for adventure, particularly those with brave traveling companions and meaning in them, are few. 

As though he notices her discomfort, he spares her any scrutiny by looking straight ahead, off towards the fire. "How are you, my lady?" he asks, in his deep rumbling voice that is somehow rough and smooth at the same time and as compelling as a roll of thunder. 

"I simply need a bit of time to process the day" she says quietly, trying to sound assured and to reassure him in turn. "I've kept much to myself these past years and am not used to all the, ummm....activity...after a long day" and she smiles, tilting her chin towards his brethren where they wrestle and shout.

"I understand" he says. "You seem more withdrawn tonight, however. Were you hurt?" 

"No," she insists."I'm just a bit cold and weary, that’s all". 

At that, he unlatches his cloak and before she has time to refuse, stands and sweeps it up around her shoulders. "Perhaps this will help," he says. The warmth and woodsmoke scent of him wraps around her and he settles back down beside her, still just a hands-breadth away. 

And almost immediately she feels....changed. Suddenly the dragging heaviness of the day is gone and she feels a new kind of energy flow through her. She has felt this when near him before, but has been careful to ignore it as best she can, thinking it would not do to feel attraction for this man who is after all a dwarf and a future king, and one with his will bent on a nearly impossible task.

After all this however, after everything they've been through and the risk of death all around them for long days on end, she finds she no longer has the will to feel anything other than what she feels. And in this moment it is a surge of affection, her own concern for him to match his for her, and something more she cannot name. 

She gently moves her hand up over his, which she can feel is scarred and strong from battle and blacksmithing. He goes still and she can sense he is surprised by this small boldness, but he doesn’t speak. 

And so she does, to break the quiet before it grows tense. "You care for others in all things, without even thought. I find myself wondering if it is your royal training or the disposition of your heart or both." 

And then she pauses for a few moments and thinking further on it says slowly "No matter, it is beautiful wherever the impulse comes from. And you do it despite your own burdens, which are heaviest...which are beyond that which anyone should need to endure. I see how they weigh on you." 

He simply inclines his head a little, as if in acknowledgement or humility or both, and lets her hand rest where it is. He still doesn't speak and so she continues, feeling swept up in her thoughts without really knowing herself where they are leading. "I find myself wondering if you ever let others care for you in return." 

She pauses and looks over at him. Something in her belly drops, warning her that she is treading into dangerous territory. But she is still not entirely aware of her own mind and feels emboldened by some combination of the days stress, the dark and firelight, his closeness and cloak around her shoulders. 

The words tumbling out before she realizes their meaning herself, she says, "I find myself wondering whether I might somehow ease your burdens a little, if even for a moment...or a night." 

She becomes clear at her own meaning at the same moment she can feel him do the same, and she is just as shocked at herself as he must be. He goes still again, her words hanging between them like an almost solid thing. She can hear his breathing tighten and feel him drawing away inside himself as he considers how to respond. 

Anxiety begins to pool in her chest, the words already spoken and she cannot take them back. She looks up, but none of the other company members have noticed what is happening between them, save perhaps Balin, and if he sees he looks away discreetly, giving them their privacy. 

She holds her breath, waiting for him to respond, and a slow flush of shame rises up within her. She cannot fathom what made her imply an offer she herself has never even considered before now, at least not with any serious thought. The moment has stretched too long and she is embarrassed and sorry for having put him in the place of needing to refuse her when he has so many other more important things to think of. 

He clears his voice and finally begins to speak, saying "My lady, you do not need to make such a..." but she cuts him off, shaking her head for him to stop, feeling sure she knows what he must think of her. She withdraws her hand and before he can continue says in a rush, "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have...I never meant to...please forget I spoke such things".

She rises from the log quickly and her feet bear her away into the forest that surrounds them, caring not where she ends up. She is bleary eyed and her throat is tight with humiliation. When she is a safe enough distance away, tears burn down her cheeks. What was she thinking? To put him into such a position, to reveal her feelings like that...feelings she had barely begun to acknowledge herself? 

What would make her do such a thing? The exhaustion and yet also exhilaration of living another day against all odds? That she was moved and honoured when he spread his cloak over her shoulders? A growing admiration after seeing him toss so many other small acts of kindness and bravery and care away like breadcrumbs, as if he didn't know their value, as if they cost him nothing? How many times had he saved her life and the lives of all the others now? Too many to call easily to mind.

The tears begin to fade and she returns slowly to her body. Yes, it makes sense that she admires him and she will not have been the first. And he will forgive her this mistake, although he may be more withdrawn from her because of it, more careful. She will regret that distance and wish she could take back what she said, but she cannot and as she calms there is slightly less pain in it.

And then she hears movement through the trees, and suddenly he is there, behind her in the dark. She is rarely caught unawares like this and it startles her. Quickly, she scrubs a hand over her face to hide her tears.

When she turns to face him there is a fierceness radiating about him, much like anger, and she flinches back for a moment to think she caused it...before seeing that no, it is not anger at all. 

“Are you certain?” is all he says, low and hungry and with the intensity of purpose she is used to seeing when he is leading them through danger. 

Shock rushes through her, but her lips part in recognition of that hunger as it echoes in her own body. And even though she hasn’t known it until now, she is...she is certain. His eyes, pupils blown wide with desire, move to her mouth as she nods. 

And even before she has overcome her surprise and finished nodding, he is on her, pressing her back into the rough bark of a tree. His huge hands move to lift one of her legs and then the other, so that they are wrapped around his broad waist. His strength holds her up easily, so that she needn’t make any strain as he pushes against her, making her push back and moan into his hair. 

Her head falls back and his face is buried in her neck, kissing hotly and scraping gently along her skin with his teeth. Only when she cries out, when her mind is wide and blank and filled with sensation – so quick this happens under his hands and mouth! - does he gently ease back, letting each of her legs fall in turn. He leans against her, breathing hard. She pulls him back into her but he keeps himself steady as his breath calms, resting his forehead against hers. “I want to savour this” he says. “I want to savour you”. And with a deep shuddering inhale he pulls away and says “Wait here”. 

Aching with his absence, she waits, straightening her clothing where it has bunched and rumpled in their grappling. And in only moments he has returned, carrying his bedroll as well as hers. He lays them out on the ground in a clearing a few feet away, where, when she follows the gestures of his arms guiding her to lay down with him, she can see the stars overhead between the trees. 

At first he just draws her along his side, leaning up on his arm to look over her, slowly drawing his fingertips down her neck, across her breasts and stomach. He hesitates for a moment and then spreads his hand across the base of her belly, where a liquid warmth is blossoming, thick and pulsing. He looks down at her, his eyes full of astonishment and a more tender kind of desire. “Thorin,” she says quietly, reaching her hand up to his face and rolling his name around in her mouth.

He leans down and they kiss, his tongue tracing along her lips, then gaining entry and finding hers. The kiss deepens, sweet but also hard and hungry and his hand moves down, releasing the ties of her leggings. Then, as she arches into his touch, he moves his hand down, sliding his fingers into her with such quick ease that she cries out again, pleasure pulsing through her. 

He has her breathless and writhing in minutes, and he smiles against her mouth. She is so unused to him smiling that she pauses. They both pull back to look at each other and she finds herself smiling in return. His face is wide and bright and full of wonder - it is beautiful. She takes it in for the space of a few breaths then pulls his head back down for another kiss as she rides into his fingers. He pushes up inside her, groaning into her mouth as she clenches around him. 

He pulls his hand out and away from her and she whimpers in protest, but then he is pulling her pants down her thighs, his hands running over her skin as they go, down over her knees until he can toss them to the side. He then rolls down onto his back and pulls her on top of him. Her tunic is still on but her legs are bare on either side of him, his strong hands on each. She rolls languidly against the thick hardness of him. He moans, hands squeezing into the flesh of her thighs.

She leans down, pressing the weight of herself along his torso. She kisses him teasingly, biting his lips and pulling away each time he reaches for her with his mouth. She then rubs her cheek against the coarseness of his beard, skims her teeth against his jaw and neck. All the while, her fingers are undoing the fastenings of his clothing until they are against the bare flesh of his chest. Like his hands it is powerful with all his time at forge and fighting.

Echoing his earlier movements she eases his last article of clothing off, running her palms back up his legs and letting him watch her as her hair falls around him and her face comes to rub up the crook of his thigh to his hip. She kisses the most vulnerable corner of his flesh, knowing how sensitive it is, how close to his straining cock. She works her way around as he jerks under her ministrations, rutting up against her neck and shoulder. She smiles and slows even further, teasingly moving her way towards the hardness of him, but first working all around it with lips and tongue.

Finally, she comes to rest against his smooth wide cock, rubbing along the shaft of it with the softness of her lips and cheek. She stops and allows the heat of her breath to move over the tip of it, her head resting on his belly as his breathing stalls with anticipation. Moving her hand to cover the length of him, she parts her lips slightly and presses them to the head of his cock, tasting the salty bead of liquid there. He moans and she begins to allow him into her mouth with agonizing slowness, letting him feel every slow inch of sinking into her wet heat. 

When she has taken as much of him into her mouth as she can, she rests there a moment, letting him fight the urge to move inside her, and then begins to caress her tongue over the underside of his cockhead, sweeping it back and forth. She strokes up and down the shaft with her hand as her mouth worships the rest of him, rolling her neck so that he slides against the roof of her mouth, over her tongue, again and again, twisting around him as she goes. 

When she can feel him nearing an edge she pulls away, crawls up his body into the circle of his waiting arms where he crushes her against him in another kiss. They rest a moment, letting their breathing slow and synchronize, before he rolls her onto her back once more and pulls himself up on top of her, laying between her outspread legs. He licks and nips his way back down her body, building in urgency, eventually placing his hands underneath her and pulling her up into his mouth, his beard rubbing against her thighs. 

She is gasping and arching as he licks and nuzzles her, lips pulling gently at her clit, tongue fluttering against it and moving along her folds until she is nearing her own edge of climax. He stops, lips glistening with her arousal, and climbs back up her body, looking down at her for a long moment. 

“This is what you want?” he asks, his face leaning close over hers, his hair falling around her. “Yes. How could you doubt that now?” she whispers back. “Will you conceive?” he asks, ever the practical leader, trained to think of all things and to care for others before himself. “No” she says. “I have medicine I carry with me that suppresses my fertility. The chances would be incredibly small”. 

“Good”, he murmurs, low and dark, and he is on her again, removing her tunic. His hands and mouth move over her with an easy talent for touch, building her into a frenzy of pleasure, until his fingers enter her again and find her so ready that he bites her collarbone, groaning and barely containing the fury of his need. 

His face tilts up to hers as though he is still asking for permission. She looks back, letting her desire show in her face so that he will know that he has it. Not breaking eye contact, she reaches down to take him in her hand and guide him first against, rubbing the head of his cock into her wetness until he shudders and closes his eyes, and then into her. 

His eyes come open again as she eases him in an inch and then another, just like she did with her mouth, the sounds coming from him growing even deeper as her soft strong flesh glides around him. Then she stops, wraps her legs around his and pulls him the rest of the way into her, swift and sudden.

They both cry out and then still for a moment, breathing heavy, feeling the immense pleasure of being joined in this way. Then they begin to move. Their rhythms are matched, him thrusting into her with powerful rolls of his hips, his warrior’s body tense with a mixture of abandon and constraint. Meanwhile, she moves herself over the length of him with a sweet slick friction, tilting into his strokes in a way that makes them both lose any thought but of the other. 

At one point she is straddling him, riding him with long joyful movements that come from some place in her that is beyond thought. His eyes gazing up over her body and face make her feel beautiful, even though they are both covered in the dried blood, dirt, and bruises of the past few days. Then she is on her back again, him above her, arms braced on either side to carry the bulk of his weight.

His presence is powerful and radiating even from a distance. This close, against and inside her, he is overwhelming. Every sense is overflowing with him and she cannot tell where she ends and he begins. He is like the moon at the horizon, full and huge and filling her vision with light. And there is something like a building tide in her, waves growing heavier against his gravity. He can feel it in her, cresting, and murmurs "Yes, yes" into her hair. 

She wraps herself around him, legs around thick thighs and arms around muscled shoulders, matching him on each stroke until it is too much to hold back, until it is inevitable and obliterating everything else and she is throbbing around him. His own release is triggered by the pulse and pull of her, and he spills himself, both of them crying out in the darkness.

**********

In the moments after, shocks of sensation still wracking their bodies, they rest their heads together until an awareness of the dark forest around them slowly returns. The gold-green light of a firefly streaks by and they both look up to watch it pass. 

Then he is gazing at her again, all the intensity of what has just happened making him feel almost as though he too is glowing. He wonders how he could have lost himself so completely and forgotten every stress and loneliness he has felt all these long years. He can feel his strength returned to him, his purpose on this quest renewed somewhere deep in his bones. 

He has a quick pang for the fact that he almost denied her - that in his carefulness, his long training in making choices for others, he nearly turned her away for what he thought was her own good. He lets out a long breath, grateful that she had the courage to give voice to her desire, despite how vulnerable it made her. He admires her greatly for this, and is even more relieved that he had the courage to risk going after her. It was a courage so different from wielding a sword or rushing headlong into battle - one he is far less familiar with. 

He has learned something this night, both as a man and as a leader. But there is time enough to consider that later and he returns to the moment, not wanting to miss any part of her next to him. 

She hums her satisfaction, a small warm sound that he thinks may be the most delicious thing he has heard in decades. The night has worn on and the rest of the company, off through the trees, is asleep. She murmurs again happily and he smiles, pulling her against his body in the dark. Dawn is not nearly far enough away.

**Author's Note:**

> The sexual health educator in me can’t leave out a mention of birth control, even in smut that takes place in a fictional world. It makes me laugh at myself.


End file.
